fINANCE FUN

A man walked into a New York bank and asked for a loan of $5,000 for two weeks. For collateral, he offered the keys and title for a new $250,000 Ferrari parked outside. That was good enough for the loan officer, who provided the money and then had the car taken to an underground garage. When the man returned two weeks later and repaid the loan plus $15.41 for interest, the loan officer said he could see that the fellow was wealthy and wondered why he bothered to get the loan. "Well,'" the man replied. "Tell me a better way to park my car for two weeks in New York for $15.41 and know it was safe."

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One day, a man showed up in a remote village, said he wanted to buy monkeys and offered to pay $10 for each one. Many villagers immediately ran into a nearby forest to catch monkeys and then sold thousands to the man. As the monkey supply dropped, the man increased his offer to $25 and finally to $50 each! Then, he said he had to go away briefly for business and that his assistant would buy for him. The next day, the assistant invited the villagers to a meeting, where he said: "'While my boss is gone, I'll let you buy all his monkeys for $35 each. When he returns, you can sell them back to him at $50 a piece and make a bundle." Of course, the villagers collected their savings and bought all the monkeys. But the man never returned, and his assistant disappeared. So, once again there were monkeys everywhere. Welcome to the stock market.

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Dictionary for Stock Market investors:

• Broker - Poorer than you were before.
  
• P/E ratio - Percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
  
• Standard & Poor - Your life in a nut shell.
  
• Stock Analyst - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
  
• Bull Market - A random market movement causing investors to mistake themselves for a genius.
  
• Bear Market - A period of 6 to 18 months when kids get no allowance and spouses gets no jewelry or sex.
  
• Stock split - When ex-spouses and their lawyers split all your assets equally between themselves.
  
• Financial Planner - A guy who actually remembers his wallet when he runs to a 7-11 for toilet paper and cigarettes.
  
• Market Correction - The day after you buy stocks.
  
• Cash Flow - The movement your money makes as it goes down the toilet.
  
• Yahoo - What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $540 per share.
  
• Windows 2000 - What you jump out of when you're the sucker that bought Yahoo for $540 per share.

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         IF YOU HAVE TWO COWS  AND YOU ARE ..........

• A CHRISTIAN: You keep one and give one to a neighbor .

• A REPUBLICAN:  Your neighbor has none. So what?

• A DEMOCRAT: You help to elect people who favor higher taxes, forcing you to sell one of your cows for the money you need to pay the taxes. The candidates you supported spend your tax payments to buy a cow and give it to your  neighbor. You feel righteous.

• A COMMUNIST: The government seizes both of your cows and provides you with milk.

• A FASCIST: The government seizes both of your cows and sells you the milk. You join an underground group to help start a campaign of sabotage.

• AN AMERICAN DEMOCRAT: The government taxes you so much that you have to sell your cows to help somebody overseas who has one cow, a gift from your government.

• AN AMERICAN CAPITALIST: You sell one cow, buy a bull and build a herd of cows.

• AN AMERICAN BUREAUCRAT: The government takes both of your cows, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

• AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You sell one of your cows and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

• A FRENCH CORPORATION: You go on strike because you want three cows.

• A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You redesign your cows to be a miniature version of an ordinary cow and produce five  times as much milk.

• A GERMAN CORPORATION: You reengineer your cows so they can live for 100 years, eat once a month and milk themselves.

• AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You don't know where your cows are. You break for lunch.

• A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You count and learn you have five cows. Count once more and you have 42. Yet again and it's 12. You stop counting, have another vodka.

• A SWISS CORPORATION: You have many cows, but none belong to you. You charge for storing them for others.
  
• BRAZILIAN CORPORATION: You go into partnership with a U.S. company. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.

• AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You worship both your cows.

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